tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/morality-series-12194/articlesMorality series – The Conversation2014-10-06T19:38:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/315572014-10-06T19:38:39Z2014-10-06T19:38:39ZForget moral decline: Aussies might be getting kinder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58747/original/zstj4kz6-1410401678.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Younger generations are more likely to engage in acts of kindness.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alex Proimos</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world today is often portrayed as being less kind, friendly or giving than it used to be.</p>
<p>So-called <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/is-this-the-most-narcissistic-generation-weve-ever-seen-20130419-2i5ne.html">Gen Me</a>, today’s teens and young adults, are the poster-children of moral decline, routinely characterised as narcissistic, selfish and hedonist.</p>
<p>Despite such concerns we know relatively little about the social composition of kindness and how it is changing across generations.</p>
<p>Our research provides new evidence that Australians exhibit a strong attachment and commitment to kindness as a moral value – and that generation may shape understandings and the practice of kindness in a powerful way.</p>
<h2>Rethinking moral decline</h2>
<p>We used the <a href="http://aussa.anu.edu.au/about.php">Australian Survey of Social Attitudes</a> to assess the state and shape of contemporary moralities. This survey takes 4,000 names randomly from the electoral roll as its sample. We asked how kind Australians are, how expressions of kindness are socially distributed and what the motivations for kindness are.</p>
<p>We defined kindness as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>an everyday act of care for another person, for example, giving directions to someone who looks lost; phoning a family member who is experiencing some difficulties; offering to look after a neighbour’s pets while they are away.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The findings reveal most Australians see themselves as kind, think most Australians are kind and agree that it is important to be kind to one another.</p>
<p>Australians believe family and friends to be the two most important groups to be kind to, followed by work colleagues, neighbours and strangers.</p>
<p>Our research uncovers particularly high levels of kindness towards strangers, with levels consistent with a <a href="http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/community/">recent OECD report</a> (2013), which found 65% of Australian survey respondents reported helping a stranger in the last month. This compares to the OECD average of 48%.</p>
<p>These data indicate fears about a generalised moral insensitivity in contemporary culture may be misguided or at least exaggerated. Rather than growing moral indifference, “charitability” remains strong in Australia.</p>
<h2>It’s not all good news</h2>
<p>But the picture is more complex than a simple rebut of moral decline accounts.</p>
<p>Almost a third of respondents agreed that some people are less deserving of kindness, with men the group most represented in these negative appraisals. Gender structures the distribution of kindness, with women kinder across the board. They are more likely to see themselves as a kind person, to think most Australians are kind, to think that everyone is equally deserving of kindness and report engaging in act of kindness monthly.</p>
<p>Gender is particularly influential in relation to social ties, with women more likely than men to think it’s important to be kind to work colleagues, family, neighbours and strangers.</p>
<p>This supports the idea that women are the “kin keepers” of Western society. Think, for example, who writes the birthday and Christmas cards at your house, organises the presents and prepares the food.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58745/original/z4f8mh5x-1410400611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58745/original/z4f8mh5x-1410400611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58745/original/z4f8mh5x-1410400611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58745/original/z4f8mh5x-1410400611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58745/original/z4f8mh5x-1410400611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58745/original/z4f8mh5x-1410400611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58745/original/z4f8mh5x-1410400611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58745/original/z4f8mh5x-1410400611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jennifer.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Generational paradox</h2>
<p>Our results also provide new evidence that we need to re-think moral decline arguments that characterise younger generations as the heralds of a new self-indulgent age.</p>
<p>In what we’re dubbing the generational paradox, we found that, compared with older generations, younger generations are more likely to engage in acts of kindness, but less likely to see most Australians as kind.</p>
<p>There are a number of possible explanations for this. The first is simply that younger generations are less likely to see other Australians as kind because they they compare their own, more frequent acts of kindness more favourably with the rest of the population.</p>
<p>Another possibility is that the generational paradox reflects wider social transformations that are being felt acutely by young people.</p>
<p>Young people have the greatest exposure to the world of the precariat, those sections of the population described by development scholar <a href="http://www.guystanding.com/">Guy Standing</a> as “denizens” rather than citizens, because of the uncertainties of their existence. </p>
<p>The impact of globalisation on the labour market and the state’s retreat from universal welfare has meant they have few opportunities for a secure life. The lack of employment opportunities has robbed them of an occupational narrative in which they can feel they are becoming something. </p>
<p>This economic uncertainty co-exists with a political agenda in which respect for the individual has elevated human rights and created an increased emphasis on values of respect and recognition. </p>
<p>This tension possibly underlies why younger generations are more committed to kindness yet are less likely than older generations to regard Australians as kind.</p>
<p>Whatever the explanation, these findings do suggest the need for a re-think of popular and academic characterisations of moral decline, including the role of younger generations in the supposed push toward a more narcissistic, selfish and uncaring society.</p>
<p><br>
<em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-days-virtue-isnt-just-for-sanctimonious-do-gooders-31168">a series</a> on public morality in 21st century Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The world today is often portrayed as being less kind, friendly or giving than it used to be. So-called Gen Me, today’s teens and young adults, are the poster-children of moral decline, routinely characterised…Nicholas Hookway, Lecturer, Sociology, University of TasmaniaDaphne Habibis, Director, Housing and Community Research Unit, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/307272014-10-01T04:15:13Z2014-10-01T04:15:13ZBringing the free market down to earth is a moral question<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57967/original/r8brfx8y-1409621150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The distribution of wealth is fundamentally a moral question. So why has the response to the GFC been so sluggish?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/JUSTIN LANE</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Five years on, the response of governments around the world to the global financial crisis (GFC) continues to draw criticism. Leaders failed to fulfil the promises they made during the GFC’s darkest days and, post-crisis, there’s been little reform of a system in which inequality has thrived. </p>
<p>It’s clear the administration of democracy by government is – first and last – a moral question, something the shock of the GFC should have brought to global attention.</p>
<p>Jaded people are now asking questions about equality. Why does the culture of dangerous risk-taking for the creation of private profit appear to remain the status quo? What proof do governments have to show <em>us</em> that justice has been served? </p>
<p>Slowly, we’re seeing answers to those questions emerge. See for instance Tom Malleson’s <a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199330102.do">After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century</a>, Joseph Stiglitz’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com.au/The-Price-Inequality-Divided-Endangers-ebook/dp/B007MKCQ30">The Price of Inequality</a> and, of course, Thomas Picketty’s now famous <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X">Capital in the 21st Century</a> (masterfully translated from French to English, we shouldn’t forget, by <a href="http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/meet-thomas-pikettys-translator">Arthur Goldhammer</a>). </p>
<p>These and other works share a common theme: they focus on something called the “democratic economy” or “economic democracy”.</p>
<p>The main concern of the democratic economy is to increase the participation of citizens in all matters related to the economy. This can be done, for example, by instituting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting">participatory budgeting</a> at the local level, a deliberative <a href="http://sydneyyoursay.com.au/citizens-jury">citizens’ jury</a> at the state level and a <a href="http://www.newdemocracy.com.au/library/case-studies/104-the-australian-citizens-parliament-2009">citizens’ parliament</a> or <a href="http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=38499#.U_0VkhAf-kx">participatory taxation</a> at the federal level. </p>
<p>Citizens can <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_democracy">deliberate</a> between themselves and reach decisions with the help of non-partisan experts on topics such as redistributive taxation and economic regulation.</p>
<p>But democratic mechanisms of this sort are not the norm – especially in countries such as the USA and the UK whose decision-makers <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9934.html">were complicit in triggering</a> the global financial crisis. </p>
<p>The lack of regulation, the weak enforcement of existing regulations and the missing participation of citizens in creating policy and renewing regulations over economic matters is a moral issue. It is wrong, and a distressing mistake, for power-monopolisers such as governments to shirk their obligation to respond to the crisis democratically. </p>
<p>The following points illustrate why. </p>
<p><strong>Democratic innovations are wasted:</strong> Ready-to-use democratic innovations, many of which have been tested to see if they work – and do – remain mostly ignored by governments and un-championed by elites. A brief glance at <a href="http://participedia.net/">Participedia</a>, which documents methods for citizen participation from around the world, provides evidence of this. It is both disingenuous and wasteful to not implement these types of innovation.</p>
<p><strong>Inequality is damaging to democracy</strong>: The divisions between individuals caused by disparities in capital, wealth, financial inheritance and material belongings sets fire to the delicate social fabric on which a democratic society depends. The idea of democracy has always been attached to the idea of a society that has the ability to rebalance itself to promote and maintain its egalitarian character. Blocking – or not fostering – the ability of a people to decide about public and private capital in their societies binds the hands of the citizenry.</p>
<p><strong>Capitalism is needlessly defined as “do-or-die”</strong>: As the academic and author Thomas Malleson <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/tom-malleson/economic-democracy-in-21st-century">recently pointed out</a>, using democratic innovations to involve citizens in decision-making about their respective economies has an added bonus: it allows citizens to define their own brand of capitalism. Most are happy to see healthy and fierce competition but only under the kind of spirit found during friendly sporting matches. </p>
<p>This is a clear rejection of the non-compassionate, do-or-die variant of capitalism that has come to define our times. The do-or-die variant became entrenched partly because of the making sacred of creating and accumulating private profit.</p>
<p><strong>The free hand of the market should not be interfered with</strong>: Economic democracy does away with the spurious distinction between the free market and the people. Regarding the free hand of the market as an ethereal object is absurd because human beings <em>are</em> the market.</p>
<p>The market is an expression of <em>our</em> choices and actions. We create and move the market because we decide what objects will have value. We decide the rules that will govern objects of value – for instance, how different values can be traded. Under this logic it is only reasonable for a democrat to suppose she or he will have the ability to influence the very thing that she or he helps to create by being active in the economy.</p>
<p>The four points outlined above show that the moral framework which guides the democratic economy is one premised on implementing democratic innovations so that citizens may participate in and have deciding power over their economy. </p>
<p>The democratic economy brings the market down from the heavens and within reach of the people. It justifies why people must participate and have deciding power over the economy. And it provides a system of values which does demarcate what is right and what is wrong.</p>
<p><br>
<em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-days-virtue-isnt-just-for-sanctimonious-do-gooders-31168">a series</a> on public morality in 21st century Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Five years on, the response of governments around the world to the global financial crisis (GFC) continues to draw criticism. Leaders failed to fulfil the promises they made during the GFC’s darkest days…Jean-Paul Gagnon, University Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian Catholic UniversityMark Chou, Lecturer in Politics, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/316752014-09-23T02:16:08Z2014-09-23T02:16:08ZWhy moral education should involve moral philosophy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59336/original/32fm6rdg-1411000068.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Does an education in everyday ethics really require an understanding of moral philosophy?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jef Safi/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ethics are increasingly a part of the school curriculum, and practical introductory classes in applied ethics are part of the training that nurses, scientists and soldiers undergo. </p>
<p>Ethical education is ubiquitous, even though it may not always involve complicated theoretical debates – but should it include a dose of philosophy? There are powerful reasons for looking to moral philosophy to learn about real-world ethical action – and of course, there are risks too.</p>
<h2>Why we can’t do without moral philosophy</h2>
<p>Moral education draws on the philosophical method. This method requires understanding concepts and distinctions, knowing what makes arguments valid, and attending to counter-arguments. Those skills are vital in the age-old business of moral argument, which involves considering moral principles, appealing to reasons, and comparing analogous cases. Because moral norms are not tangible or scientifically testable, we need conceptual clarity to avoid talking past each other. As well, being philosophically consistent can prevent us from making exceptions for ourselves (a common form of hypocrisy).</p>
<p>But why is moral argument itself a good thing? Moral argument allows us to keep engaging with others even when we disagree about values. Values are not simply “given”, but can turn out to be amenable to reasoned discussion. </p>
<p>Moral philosophy also helps us <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-dont-need-no-moral-education-five-things-you-should-learn-about-ethics-30793">question unhelpful assumptions</a> and informs us about the ways our values connect to our descriptive beliefs, such as scientific hypotheses about human psychology.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding all the endless debates – and some debates really have been going on for millennia – advances do occur. Natural rights theories were philosophical systems long before human rights laws protected people’s equal rights. Many would agree <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/">human rights</a> constitute genuine moral progress. Moral philosophy stands as an enduring record of what we have learnt so far.</p>
<p>Moral philosophy empowers us through its method and substance to reflect upon and talk about challenging moral issues. Studying ethics can even propel a personal journey, where we learn about ourselves and the way we think. We might even learn that others think in different ways.</p>
<h2>The risks</h2>
<p>Moral philosophy tends to focus on areas of disagreement. Applied ethics classes explore disputed issues such as abortion and euthanasia, rather than discussing the many issues on which we all agree. Furthermore, moral philosophy explores our reasons for being moral. But often we can agree on the right thing to do even when we disagree on the underlying principles. </p>
<p><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maritain/">Jacques Maritain</a> captured this theme during the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when he summed up the UNESCO philosophy group’s thoughts by saying: “Yes, we agree about the rights, but on condition no-one asks us why”.</p>
<p>The further we follow the trail of breadcrumbs into philosophical rabbit-warrens, the more morality threatens to become the domain of experts. Once we move from basic moral argument to high theory, philosophy becomes <em>hard</em> – an elite domain for those with the mental aptitude and the time to master the extensive knowledge required. </p>
<p>When the philosophical going gets tough, those without this acquired expertise can easily feel out of their depth. For them, philosophical argument may seem as much a weapon of intimidation as a tool of mutual exploration.</p>
<p>Much moral philosophy involves studying comprehensive moral theories, such as those fashioned by <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-days-virtue-isnt-just-for-sanctimonious-do-gooders-31168">Aristotle</a> (virtue theory), <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/">Kant</a> (deontology) and <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/mill-eth/">Mill</a> (utilitarianism). Philosophers have good reasons to develop these complex systems. Theories provide systematic ways of explaining, describing and justifying moral action. </p>
<p>Simply put, we cannot do moral philosophy without moral theories.</p>
<p>But full-blown philosophical theorising harbours a darker side. Accepting one theory means rejecting all the others, and the unique insights they can offer. Further, because each theory’s advocates demand they have reason to believe their theory, they can become intolerant. </p>
<p>They might demand that their arguments must be answered and (if not demonstrated as false) accepted. They can be tempted to conclude that all non-believers are unreasonable dogmatists. Worse still, sometimes courses can expose students to just one type of moral theory, without learning about other alternatives. Far from expanding those students’ moral horizons, exposure to high theory narrows them.</p>
<h2>Where to?</h2>
<p>If moral education needs moral philosophy, and moral philosophy needs high theory, how should we proceed? I offer just one suggestion. </p>
<p>Most moral theories build on a core insight. Utilitarianism tells us consequences for others’ wellbeing matter. Deontology stresses that morality requires each person accepting they are duty-bound to act in certain ways towards other people. Virtue theory reminds us that character drives action, and that ethical life carries its own rewards. These insights all provide valuable perspectives on the larger mosaic of human moral life. Moral education is at its best when it introduces students to these different perspectives, and their unique insights.</p>
<p>For ordinary people trying to think through practical moral questions, it is the insights (and not the theories) that matter most.</p>
<p><br>
<em>This is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/morality-series">a series</a> on public morality in 21st century Australia. We’ll be publishing regular articles on morality on The Conversation in the coming weeks.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh Breakey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ethics are increasingly a part of the school curriculum, and practical introductory classes in applied ethics are part of the training that nurses, scientists and soldiers undergo. Ethical education is…Hugh Breakey, Moral Philosopher, Griffith University, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/316792014-09-22T06:01:41Z2014-09-22T06:01:41ZEnvironmental policy isn’t value-neutral: where do the ethics hide?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59647/original/cqm9mwq3-1411348296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All public decision-making depends on ethical values, even if that's disguised. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/NEWZULU/Courtney Biggs</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>However they’re spun, environmental concerns are never far from the headlines – and coordinated global marches on the weekend attest to the public’s interest in this area. </p>
<p>Whenever we’ve made contributions to government inquiries on environmental issues, my colleagues and I have been disappointed to find the ethical concerns we raised were relegated to the back pages of the final report. </p>
<p>One reason for our disappointment lies in the conviction that ethics deserves a better billing. If something is unethical it shouldn’t be done. </p>
<p>We were also puzzled by the assumption that ethical values have nothing to do with the economic and technological reasoning that plays a dominant role in public decision-making.</p>
<p>All public decision-making depends on ethical values, but sometimes values are disguised by a method that appears to be value-neutral. So what are the hidden ethical assumptions that underpin decisions about environmental issues?</p>
<h2>The ethics of a cost-benefit analysis</h2>
<p>When the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-dump-great-barrier-reef-dredging-myths-authority-chief-22991">decided</a> to support a permit for dredging Abbot Point and depositing debris in an area adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef, it admitted that almost all public submissions opposed the project. But the Authority <a href="http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/about-us/consultation/current-proposals-completed-assessment/abbot-point-capital-dredging-project">argued</a> that the environmental costs were not sufficient to override the economic benefits of putting a coal shipping terminal in that place – so long as these costs could be mitigated by strict conditions imposed on the dredging company. </p>
<p>Here is a case where objective reasoning appears to win out over the “uninformed” or value-laden views of opponents. But a closer look reveals that it is not as objective as it first appears.</p>
<p>The Authority made technical assessments that its critics <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-09/queensland-resources-council-backs-plan-to-re-use/5730702">questioned</a> and their doubts have led to a proposal to deposit dredged material onshore. But it also made controversial value assumptions by employing a decision-making method that favours the option that produces the greatest benefits over costs. </p>
<p>This method requires weighing up and comparing costs and benefits – a procedure that is especially difficult when benefits or costs cannot be quantified. </p>
<p>How should we compare the economic benefits of a new port to the value of uncontaminated water – for fish, fishermen or people who enjoy recreation in the area? But it also requires decision-makers to subscribe to an ethical position called utilitarianism. </p>
<p>Value, according to this view, depends on the consequences of an action, and the right action is the one that maximises welfare. Utilitarianism has an important place in policymaking. But its results do not always correspond to the way people value. </p>
<p>Most of us think that some things have a value that should not be compromised, threatened or replaced with a substitute – whatever the benefits of doing so. Human life, great works of art, species and national heritage are common examples of things that people value in this way. </p>
<p>To many Australians the Great Barrier Reef has this kind of value. These opponents of dredging are not impressed by the argument that the costs are small and are outweighed by the benefits of building a port. But their way of valuing is not captured by a cost-benefit analysis.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59499/original/yfk6r84w-1411095304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59499/original/yfk6r84w-1411095304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59499/original/yfk6r84w-1411095304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59499/original/yfk6r84w-1411095304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59499/original/yfk6r84w-1411095304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59499/original/yfk6r84w-1411095304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59499/original/yfk6r84w-1411095304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59499/original/yfk6r84w-1411095304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The decision making for the port at Abbot Point was said to be neutral - but a closer look reveals unacknowledged ethical assumptions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Greenpeace</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Discounting the future</h2>
<p>When Ross Garnaut produced his <a href="http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/garnaut-review-2011.html">2008 Climate Change Review</a> for the Rudd Government he had to make a decision about how to determine the costs that present people should bear for the sake of future generations. </p>
<p>Economists make this decision by choosing a rate of discount for harms and benefits in the future. A high discount rate could justify putting off most of the expense of dealing with climate change by passing on the costs to future people. </p>
<p>Choosing a high discount rate is often justified by the fact that people prefer benefits in the present to benefits in the future. But from an ethical point of view it is hard to justify use of a formula that devalues the wellbeing of future people. </p>
<p>For this reason Garnaut <a href="http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/update-papers/up1-key-points.html">chose a zero rate of discount</a> in respect to the value placed on costs and benefits to future people. But he also thought it was reasonable to assume that future people will be better off than us and thus more able to bear costs. </p>
<p>The belief that our descendants will be wealthier than us may turn out to be false. </p>
<p>But this is not the only problem. Economic accounting tends to assume that wealth is the only thing that counts. Future people will not be better off if climate change undermines their security or their enjoyment and use of nature.</p>
<h2>Assessing risk</h2>
<p>The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority reckoned there was a small risk that a severe storm could cause dredged material to pollute the Barrier Reef. How that risk was assessed is unclear but it was not regarded as sufficient to veto the Abbot Point development.</p>
<p>There is a formula commonly used for assessing risk. Its quantity depends on the magnitude of harm times the probability the harm will occur. The problem that bedevils the application of this formula – especially in the case of environmental risks – are the uncertainties that attach to any attempt to calculate probability of harm.</p>
<p>But the formula also contains a value assumption: that a risk becomes acceptable if the probability of harm is low.</p>
<p>Adopting a course of action that has a small probability of causing harm might be all right if the harm is not all that serious. If the harm could be catastrophic then even a small probability that it will occur makes the decision morally questionable. </p>
<p>John Broome, the philosopher/economist who advised the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/climate-change-controversy-takes-a-philosophical-turn-20131011-2vdt7.html">puts</a> it this way: You don’t get a fire extinguisher because of what’s most likely to happen. You get one because of the dire consequences of what might happen. </p>
<p>If we put a high priority on protecting the Reef from serious harm, then a small chance it will occur is reason enough to cancel or change a project.</p>
<p>This survey shows that the ethical choices of policymakers and advisors are not merely found in their stated values. They are often embedded in their choice of a formula or procedure. We can judge for ourselves whether the assumptions are good or bad. But first we need to know what they are.</p>
<p><br>
<em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/morality-series">a series</a> on public morality in 21st-century Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>
I contribute to the Greens and sometimes do volunteer work for this political party.</span></em></p>However they’re spun, environmental concerns are never far from the headlines – and coordinated global marches on the weekend attest to the public’s interest in this area. Whenever we’ve made contributions…Janna Thompson, Professor of Philosophy, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/309572014-09-21T20:41:41Z2014-09-21T20:41:41ZA moral world in which bad things happen to good people<p>On All Saints Day in 1755 the earth quaked beneath the city of Lisbon. Crowds rushed to open spaces near the sea only to be engulfed by a tsunami. The philosopher Voltaire lamented the tragedy in his <a href="http://ajplyon.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/voltaire-poem-on-the-lisbon-disaster-2014.pdf">Poem on the Lisbon Disaster</a>. In his view, the scale of human suffering overwhelmed any defense of God.</p>
<p>The force of Voltaire’s critique arose directly from the mechanistic understanding of the physical world that he shared with many 18th century philosophers. After Isaac Newton, earthquakes could be deterministically linked to a distant divinity. As Voltaire quipped, “God holds the chain”. Such metaphors stand in stark contrast to the long tradition of justifications of God in the face of suffering and evil. It goes back at least to the Hebrew Bible’s Job where divine mystery is expressed through the incomprehensibility of a whirlwind. </p>
<p>Today, poets critical of theodicy – philosophical vindication of an omnipotent force oblivious to earthquakes and ill-fortune – are as likely to write for the cinema as for literature. </p>
<p>Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2009 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1019452/">A Serious Man</a> deconstructs the life of a mid-20th-century Jewish-American physics professor named Larry Gopnik. Throughout, an un-named God reverently referred to as Hashem, haunts a series of ethical conundrums. While the problem of evil is very old, Larry’s physics are new.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7iggyFPls4w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for A Serious Man.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In one of the early scenes, Larry giddily finishes off a mathematical proof for the counterintuitive implications of quantum mechanics. “And that’s Schrödinger’s paradox, right? Is the cat dead or is the cat not dead?” </p>
<p>Later on, Larry finishes off another chalkboard full of equations to demonstrate Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. “It proves we can’t ever really know … what’s going on. But even though you can’t figure anything out, you will be responsible for it on the mid-term.” </p>
<p>Herein lies the dark irony of the entire film, which narrates an ethical fable in quantum mechanics’ aftermath. </p>
<p>As it happens, the film is not particularly interested in mathematics and does not dispute its objective claims. The math is “the real thing”, Larry says at one point. “The stories I give you in class are just illustrative; they’re like, fables, say, to help give you a picture.” Hence, just as with Voltaire, the Coens’ poetic critique of theodicy emerges directly from their narration of physics.</p>
<p>Since Alan Sokal published <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair">an intentionally obfuscated and illogical account</a> of quantum mechanics in the journal Social Text, cultural theorists have remained wary of the subject. However, that hasn’t dissuaded philosophers such as <a href="http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/">Slavoj Zizek</a> from affirming its mathematical certainty, precisely in order to appropriate its resulting account of probability. Such probability informs his critique of ideology and understanding of cultural change. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source"> AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his 2003 book <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/puppet-and-dwarf">The Puppet and the Dwarf</a>, Zizek argues that the Hebrew Bible’s Job can be read as a critique of the dominant theodicy of its time: God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. In this view Job is a protestor, who is vindicated by the end of the story when God finally appears. </p>
<p>At this, Zizek remains astonished and offers an alternative interpretation. Why would Job be satisfied with the empty gestures of a whirlwind? As Zizek summarises:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So what we get is neither the good God letting Job know that his suffering was just an ordeal destined to test his faith, nor a dark God beyond Law, the God of pure caprice, but, rather, a God who acts like someone caught in a moment of impotence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pushing Job’s unwritten interior dialogue to these conclusions, Zizek arrives at an even more profound critique of theodicy, one echoed in A Serious Man.</p>
<p>Throughout the film everyone has told Larry to see Rabbi Marshak. However, it seems the elder sage has more or less retired to a life of contemplative study. The only exception is bar mitzvah initiates. Hence, Larry’s 13-year-old son Danny is the one to eventually garner an appointment. As he passes through Marshak’s door, the camera pans to Caravaggio’s 1618 “Sacrifice of Isaac”, hanging on the wall. Danny’s resemblance to the sacrificial victim is striking. </p>
<p>After a long pause, the frail Rabbi begins to recite not the Torah nor Talmud, but the film’s Jefferson Airplane soundtrack: “When the truth is found. To be lies… And all the hope. Within you dies… then what?” </p>
<p>The answer to Marshak’s question is not given. It merely reiterates numerous paradoxes in the film: the opening parable about a rabbi/dybbuk who may or may not be dead; a student’s bribe/gift which may or may not have been given; the final tornado that could twist toward destruction or delivery; Schroedinger’s cat. Even the film’s epigram from the French Rabbi Rashi, “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you”, could be taken either as a dark joke or in all seriousness.</p>
<p>In an interview, the Coens denied any reference to the biblical Job. The entire film seems intent on leaving the audience to its own conclusions. Nonetheless, I suspect that it is not the mysterious Hashem that is the target of the film’s dark humour and critique, so much as the deterministic deity of Voltaire. As Larry struggles with the ethical ambiguity around him, it is hard not to identify with one character’s suggestion: “Please. Accept mystery.”</p>
<p>A Serious Man concludes with the Jefferson Airplane refrain, “you better find somebody to love”. </p>
<p>Maybe this is the summation of the Torah Rabbi Marshak meant to provide. It has the beneficial economy of Occam’s razor. However, precisely by refusing a simple explanation, the film seems to say something more. Today we need not live on the site of earthquakes and tsunamis. The news relentlessly flickers across our screens. Moreover, each tragedy is often accompanied by a pundit’s repetition of the theodicies of old. </p>
<p>And yet, as Emanuel Levinas suggested in an essay on <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415755016/">“Useless Suffering,”</a> after Auschwitz the possibility remains for “a faith more difficult than ever… a faith without theodicy”. </p>
<p><br>
<em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/morality-series">a series</a> on public morality in 21st-century Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30957/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Stanley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On All Saints Day in 1755 the earth quaked beneath the city of Lisbon. Crowds rushed to open spaces near the sea only to be engulfed by a tsunami. The philosopher Voltaire lamented the tragedy in his Poem…Timothy Stanley, Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/309132014-09-18T03:59:28Z2014-09-18T03:59:28ZYou say morals, I say ethics – what’s the difference?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59363/original/y2cd5w76-1411012507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between moral and ethical decisions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/helga/3767743919/in/photolist-6JWF14-57cdzq-JJSK-aBHUX-5yWY2u-GQVQ-4hoG42-8bHVH9-buhVjq-5UKDJq-8Eumz8-79U1YK-7VpDXf-5X9piF-583nyt-7GzyYJ-bn7KyG-bfrg7P-efkbmB-wKXtS-7cqtE4-6k1oxX-7teNLt-Uhok-2fuRnw-7hjJeo-8WYbzG-dT8CtS-dT8CrG-dT8Cyy-f5AkHh-4kgozi-8rPH2a-3E8CJ-4QJ8tZ-wKXtW-apFa7F-5RAKC8-5SXKmF-6GHhV7-PmoWm-fpTqc8-akktPs-9Aoswy-bk5rPP-4CRPSC-mSvisH-NwTFd-6ZVx4t-4f2B6V">Helga Weber</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Certain customs or behaviours are recognised as <em>good</em> and others as <em>bad</em>, and these collectively comprise morality – arguably the summation of our value system as human beings. So a conversation about ethical and moral decision-making is important. </p>
<p>But problems arise when the terms “ethics” or “morals” are used interchangeably. </p>
<p>The words derive respectively from the word in Greek (<em>ethos, ethikos</em>) and Latin (<em>mores, moralis</em>), variously translated as customs, manners or social norms. In fact, however, it is possible to differentiate the Greek root of ethics from the Latin root of morality in a way that may be practically helpful. </p>
<p>According to this understanding, “ethics” leans towards decisions based upon individual character, and the more subjective understanding of right and wrong by individuals – whereas “morals” emphasises the widely-shared communal or societal norms about right and wrong. Put another way, ethics is a more individual assessment of values as relatively good or bad, while morality is a more intersubjective community assessment of what is good, right or just for all. </p>
<p>The relevance of the distinction is seen when questions such as “how should I act?” and “what should I do?” are broadened to Socrates’ question, “how should we live?”. Granted modern society’s multiplicity of cultures and traditions, resulting in a diverse moral collage, with no single truth easily identifiable, the big moral question is surely, “how should we live together?”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59364/original/h43xw6db-1411012660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59364/original/h43xw6db-1411012660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59364/original/h43xw6db-1411012660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59364/original/h43xw6db-1411012660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59364/original/h43xw6db-1411012660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59364/original/h43xw6db-1411012660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59364/original/h43xw6db-1411012660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59364/original/h43xw6db-1411012660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marco Bellucci</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In approaching such a question, the individual ethical answer can be limited by its essential egotism. It can be restricted to one’s own worldview rather than being inherently aware of the existence and relevance of others. Since recognition of others is implicit to moral questions, according to the distinction made above, moral questions can and must be answered universally. This requires having a shared dialogue – precisely since these questions deal with good, right, and justice for all. </p>
<p>Put another way, moral decision-making relocates ethical decision-making away from an individualistic reflection on imperatives, utility or virtue, into a social space. In that space one is implicitly aware of the other, wherein we understand from the start that we need to have a dialogue. There is a difference between what I should do in an ethical dilemma, and what <em>we</em> should do in a moral dilemma. </p>
<p>In ethical dilemmas, individual decision-making may draw on the frameworks of “must-do” imperatives, utility consequences, the seeking of goodness, or a guiding framework from God. </p>
<p>But ethical decisions should recognise the context within which they are set. That is, they must recognise that duties can be ranked in a hierarchy (for example, to stop at an accident to render assistance trumps the promise of meeting for coffee); in a similar way, consequences can be ranked too. </p>
<p>In moral decisions, in which the importance of others and their actual situation in the world, is recognised, community decisions are based on dialogue between all those on whom the decision impacts. That dialogue should aim to be inclusive, non-coercive, self-reflective, and seek consensus among real people, rather than seek an elusive absolute moral truth. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57979/original/r3jf3xqw-1409626302.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57979/original/r3jf3xqw-1409626302.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57979/original/r3jf3xqw-1409626302.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57979/original/r3jf3xqw-1409626302.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57979/original/r3jf3xqw-1409626302.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57979/original/r3jf3xqw-1409626302.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57979/original/r3jf3xqw-1409626302.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57979/original/r3jf3xqw-1409626302.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a simple example, consider the decision of which career I choose. </p>
<p>First I collect the facts (such as the pre-requisites I need in order to enrol in a course). Collecting the facts precedes any ethical or moral decision-making. The ethical dimension of the decision leads me to think about myself and recognise, say, that I have certain talents, or that I would like to maximise my work-life balance. </p>
<p>The moral dimension is added when I recognise my decision affects others – my family, the community in which I live – in terms of being able to serve others, rather than simply earn an income. Thus, I widen my own perspective and discuss with those around me how we should decide.</p>
<p>But it is contentious whether certain dilemmas are seen predominantly (or exclusively) as ethical or moral ones. Just consider euthanasia, homosexuality, suicide, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to name a few. </p>
<p>Each may be seen by different observers as a dilemma either for the individual to make a decision about (an ethical dilemma), or for a society to make a decision about (a moral dilemma). How we see the dilemma in large part determines the approach we will take to the decision to be made. That is, whether I think about it via a monologue with myself, or whether we, all together, enter into a dialogue about it.</p>
<p>In short, there is a valuable difference between ethics and morals.</p>
<p><br>
<em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/morality-series">a series</a> on public morality in 21st-century Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>no conflicts of interest</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Lovat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Certain customs or behaviours are recognised as good and others as bad, and these collectively comprise morality – arguably the summation of our value system as human beings. So a conversation about ethical…Paul Walker, Conjoint Assoc Professor, Clinical Unit in Ethics and Health Law, Newcastle UniversityTerry Lovat, Emeritus Professor - Theology. Ethics & Education, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/315072014-09-16T20:25:50Z2014-09-16T20:25:50ZTolerance is more than putting up with things – it’s a moral virtue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59090/original/ggbgy5c8-1410834903.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fairness and empathy are closely connected to moral development and reasoning.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">George A. Spiva Center for the Arts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We hear a lot about tolerance these days. </p>
<p>Tolerance is a moral virtue best placed within the moral domain – but unfortunately it is often confounded with prejudice. Much of the psychological research about tolerance generally and about the development of children’s understanding of tolerance of others who are different from them has been examined through research about prejudice – and not through the moral domain. The assumption made is that absence of prejudice by default means a person is tolerant. </p>
<p>Prejudice and tolerance are actually theoretically different concepts – and not the opposite of each other. In fact, they coexist in most of us. </p>
<p>Tolerance is difficult to define, which may have led to limiting the study of tolerance in psychology in favour of studying prejudice. But, unlike prejudice, tolerance can be grounded in the moral domain which offers a positive approach to examining relationships between groups of people who are different from each other. </p>
<p>Based on its Latin origin, tolerance, or toleration as philosophers often refer to it, is most commonly viewed negatively as “putting up with” something we dislike or even hate. If a person is prepared to “put up with” something – along the lines of, I do not like the colour of your skin but I will still serve you not to lose your custom – that person is someone who does not discriminate but remains intolerant in thoughts and beliefs. </p>
<p>Besides, who wants to be tolerated or be “put up with”? </p>
<p>At the same time tolerance cannot be indiscriminate. Indiscriminate acceptance in its most extreme form could lead to recognition of questionable practice and human rights violations – for instance, child marriages and neo-Nazi propaganda.</p>
<h2>Tolerance as a moral virtue</h2>
<p>An alternative way for us to think of tolerance is to place it within the moral domain and recognise that it is what it is, a moral virtue. </p>
<p>Many recent philosophers have linked tolerance with respect, equality and liberty. Those such as <a href="http://www.mdusche.de/home">Michael Dusche</a>, <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/">John Rawls</a> and <a href="http://www.ias.edu/people/faculty-and-emeriti/walzer">Michael Walzer</a> among others, argue that we should regard tolerance as a positive civic and moral duty between individuals, irrespective of colour, creed or culture. </p>
<p>In other words, it is a moral obligation or duty which involves respect for the individual as well as mutual respect and consideration between people. Tolerance between people makes it possible for conflicting claims of beliefs, values and ideas to coexistence as long as they fit within acceptable moral values. </p>
<p>So while different marriage practices fit in within acceptable moral values, sexual abuse of children is immoral and cannot be tolerated. I believe tolerance is an essential component in social unity and a remedy to intolerance and prejudice. </p>
<p>The idea that tolerance is a moral duty had been acknowledged by earlier civil libertarians, such as John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, John Stuart Mill and others. They argue that tolerant people value the individual, his or her independence and freedom of choice. </p>
<p>When tolerance is placed within the moral domain relating to fairness, justice and respect and avoiding causing harm to others, it can only be viewed as a positive moral virtue. </p>
<p>Psychological research supports the idea that tolerance is better placed within the moral domain. <a href="http://researchbank.acu.edu.au/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=17735&local_base=GEN01-ACU01">My own research</a> with my students shows the best indicators and predictors of tolerance to human diversity are fairness and empathy. </p>
<p>Fairness and empathy are also very closely connected to moral development and reasoning. They are fundamental to any coherent moral philosophy.</p>
<h2>Empathy and morality</h2>
<p>Psychologists such as <a href="http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/">Johnathan Haidt</a> believe empathy is the most important motivator for moral behaviour. Others such as <a href="http://www.psych.nyu.edu/hoffman/">Martin Hoffman</a> argue empathy is a motivator of prosocial and altruistic or unselfish behaviour. </p>
<p>Empathic people are sensitive to the thoughts, feelings and experiences of others. They are able to place themselves in someone else’s shoes or understand how it would feel to be treated badly. Placing oneself in someone else’s shoes is the essence of tolerance. </p>
<p>My research shows that people of all ages including children have a strong sense of fairness and empathy towards others different from them in colour, creed or culture. They reject prejudice and intolerance between 70% and 80% of the time affirming tolerance based on fairness and empathy. </p>
<p>Moral values such as fairness, justice, empathy, tolerance and respect are shared, if not universal, values relevant to dealing with human diversity</p>
<p>Tolerance examined as separate concept could have unique implications for education and social policy. Education aimed at promoting a harmonious society could do well to focus more on the relationship between morality and tolerance. Grounding tolerance in theories of morality allows for an alternative educational approach to promote harmonious intergroup relationships. </p>
<p>Part of this education would involve developing a strong sense of fairness and justice and the ability to empathise with the plight of others who are different in racial characteristics, ethnicity or nationality.</p>
<p><br>
<em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/morality-series">a series</a> on public morality in 21st-century Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rivka T. Witenberg received funding from Large ARC SPIRT Grant; Department of Psychology Research Support Scheme, University of Melbourne and Australian Catholic University; Centre for Education for Human Values and Tolerance, Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv, Israel; The University of Melbourne Collaborative research Grant. </span></em></p>We hear a lot about tolerance these days. Tolerance is a moral virtue best placed within the moral domain – but unfortunately it is often confounded with prejudice. Much of the psychological research about…Rivka T. Witenberg, Honarary Research Fellow in Psychology , Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/313372014-09-14T20:22:14Z2014-09-14T20:22:14ZFree your mind – but are there ideas we shouldn’t contemplate?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58749/original/g8sym7m5-1410403498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Philosophy begins, as Aristotle remarked, with curiosity and wonder. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">kozumel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’re a free thinker – congratulations – but does that mean you can, and should, approach everything with an open mind? Let me try to convince you you shouldn’t. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I do not want to argue with him: he shows a corrupt mind.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So remarked <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anscombe/">Elizabeth Anscombe</a> (1919-2001), a giant of 20th century moral philosophy. She was referring to the kind of person who is open to being convinced of something that is intrinsically unjust, such as a court judicially punishing an innocent man. </p>
<p>This seems to be the antithesis of what a moral philosopher ought to do. Her judgement seems to display a dogmatic close-mindedness to the free thinking that philosophy typifies, and an intolerant disposition toward different ideas. To dismiss the reflective, well-considered thinking of another person – even if it leads to uncomfortable conclusions – is the stuff of ideology, not philosophy.</p>
<p>Or so it seems. </p>
<p>Philosophy is, as any undergraduate student has been told, a love of wisdom and a quest for truth. Philosophers are good at recognising the complexity of truth, and accepting that there is merit in a wide range of different positions. They are also good at explaining why common assumptions are oftentimes problematic, and are therefore masters of qualifying terms: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I agree, but; Yes, insofar as; I think that’s true, on the condition that …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Philosophy begins, as Aristotle remarked, with curiosity and wonder. </p>
<p>Socrates, the pedagogical role model of Western philosophy, saw himself as a gadfly whose constant questioning of unreflective beliefs stung the vacuous horse of the Athenian political system. </p>
<p>Immanuel Kant similarly described the work of David Hume as having awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber”. Once awakened, a mind is hungry for and open to a close and authentic engagement with the truth – this hunger, like the taste for Pringles, is hard to stop once it has begun.</p>
<p>Is everything open to questioning? Are certain things so patently unethical that even being open to believing in them if one hears a persuasive enough argument is demonstrative of a deficient character? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58751/original/mt6yf7y8-1410403662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58751/original/mt6yf7y8-1410403662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58751/original/mt6yf7y8-1410403662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58751/original/mt6yf7y8-1410403662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58751/original/mt6yf7y8-1410403662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58751/original/mt6yf7y8-1410403662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58751/original/mt6yf7y8-1410403662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58751/original/mt6yf7y8-1410403662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Riccardo Romano</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Everyone believes, to borrow an example from Quentin Tarantino’s revenge film, Kill Bill, that sexually abusing a person who had fallen into a coma from which she is not expected to wake is wrong. </p>
<p>What, however, are we to think of the person who argues that “at the moment I think that those practices are immoral, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise”? Is this a virtuous commitment to truth – or a cold and de-personalised detachment from morality?</p>
<p>Reasonable disagreement on complex issues such as commercial surrogacy, the extent of the right to privacy, or same-sex marriage isn’t demonstrative of anything other than the importance of the goods at stake and the wonderful capacity of human beings to form their own opinion. </p>
<p>In such cases tolerance, open-mindedness and respectful debate are virtues of utmost importance. But as Patrick Stokes has <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-dont-need-no-moral-education-five-things-you-should-learn-about-ethics-30793">argued</a> already in this series, just because we haven’t settled every moral question doesn’t mean that truth is completely subjective. Just because people disagree on some matters doesn’t mean that they do, or even should, disagree on all of them.</p>
<p>One of the mistakes people often make about moral philosophy is that once one becomes a philosopher, one must discover the truth by themselves. Melbourne philosopher Raimond Gaita <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/a-common-humanity">describes</a> the consensus view of the true philosopher as being so strongly committed to truth that he or she should “follow the argument <em>wherever</em> it leads”. </p>
<p>Gaita is rightly critical of this position but nevertheless the belief prevails: to shirk hard truths is not becoming of a philosopher. It betrays truth, cowing to popular opinion and a deference to assumption that undermines the very practice of philosophy.</p>
<p>Except that philosophy is itself a moral activity. </p>
<p>Philosophy isn’t (primarily) a profession, nor is it a tool of argument. Philosophy is a way of living and being in the world, and the philosopher is, like every other person, shaping him or herself through reflection, questioning, and analysis. </p>
<p>Should I ever allow myself to become a person who believes that the rape of a comatose person, or any other person, is justified, or – to cite a recent controversy – that “<a href="http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full">after-birth abortion</a>” (also known as infanticide) might be a justifiable practice?</p>
<p>Of this thinking, Gaita remarks that, “were my commitment to philosophy to tempt to me such nihilism, I would give up philosophy, fearful of what I was becoming.”</p>
<p>I think Gaita is right, but it is important here to distinguish between discussion of a belief and the belief itself. In a Western society, no discussion should be taboo.</p>
<p>The Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) faced <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/festival-of-dangerous-ideas-honour-killings-talk-cancelled-20140624-3arlb.html">a host of criticism</a> for arranging a talk entitled “Honour Killings are Morally Justified”. I think it would be wrong to host such a talk with the hope or belief that people might be persuaded of its truth – but I don’t think hosting a talk on honour killings, with the intention of understanding how the practice is justified by some, of hearing why it takes place, could ever be condemned as immoral. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/honour-killings-crossing-the-line-with-a-dangerous-idea-20140625-zslgv.html">I argued at the time</a>, FODI organisers were wrong to title the talk as they did, but they weren’t wrong to want such a talk to occur.</p>
<p>We can discuss which beliefs are ones which it is simply wrong to be open to persuasion regarding; in some ways, that might be a matter of private determination, but we ought to agree that such things exist. </p>
<p>Indeed, any truth, once we recognise it to be true, ought to be clung to. “Test everything. Hold fast to that which is good.” wrote St Paul to the Thessalonians. Be willing to listen, but recognise that what one is willing to be convinced of, or what one is willing to be persuaded from, is itself a moral choice. </p>
<p>“No man wishes to possess the whole world,” Aristotle wrote, “if he must first become somebody else.” </p>
<p>Part of what defines a person, a society, and humanity, must be what we refuse, absolutely, to allow ourselves to become – not only as actors, but as thinkers too.</p>
<p><em>This is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/morality-series">a series</a> on public morality in 21st century Australia. We’ll be publishing regular articles on morality on The Conversation in the coming weeks.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Beard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>You’re a free thinker – congratulations – but does that mean you can, and should, approach everything with an open mind? Let me try to convince you you shouldn’t. I do not want to argue with him: he shows…Matthew Beard, Research Associate, Centre for Faith, Ethics and Society, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/313392014-09-11T20:27:42Z2014-09-11T20:27:42ZThe ‘perfect family’ has created an ethical and moral vacuum<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58630/original/qtjy7k2z-1410315095.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Very little we say in the policy room can contain the enormous complexity of family life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/awiseacre/3272425292/in/photolist-mXQEt-6cR51-dybRsJ-5Zb32J-mXQF6-6QxdG3-fTXDvQ-deQuxp-5dfyXB-eWtToH-6XQTKM-9Jvubw-6cqtJ1-jF5tAF-dJGD1x-hSmTP8-bVTfXQ-KqK9M-iidPBK-7H7Qvm-h5XTi-nNxe1z-7fT6mQ-2Z9HA-FA5qh-TtxLH-eca4jb-ksDw8-i32FzX-fcui3D-noqnsM-nSYjv7-5xTMCG-Gewb5-c2WL3s-M3EKc-7z2DMK-9oqBeG-doC2dw-epZXDb-fctTgB-9hLvgo-c2WHuW-e2unRo-c2WKnY-npK5xb-4EGisC-5zyRAx-bKSe2M-65aM8r">Kitty DuKane</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether we’re reading about family studies research in <a href="http://www.womansday.com.au/">Women’s Day</a> , <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/">Scientific American</a> or the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/.UfMxyhZ5i5I#.VApZJ2SSzrM">Journal of GLBT Family Studies</a>, most of us look for evidence that will help us understand where we sit along the continuum of functional and dysfunctional family systems. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, research doesn’t often give us answers about what to do with the evidence we find. But that doesn’t stop opinionators, policy-makers and psychologists lining up to tell us how research evidence should shape our lives, particularly when it comes to our families. </p>
<p>The most recent example of this is the flurry of discussion over decades-long research studies that convincingly point to evidence that children do better with two parents who are married. In a simple interpretative two-step, author and Manhattan Institute fellow Kay Hymowitz <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/08/how-single-motherhood-hurts-kids/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=3">distilled this data</a> into a sound-bite worthy formula: single motherhood is harmful for children. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/society-wedded-to-fallacies-on-families/story-e6frgd0x-1227033697245#&mm-premium">recent article</a> in The Australian, psychologist Bettina Arndt, heartened by Hymowitz’s recent Australian visit, and keen for us to understand the importance of these new findings, paves a similar ethical shortcut by urging us to stop ignoring what she refers to as “the casualisation of families”. </p>
<p>As an example of such “casual” families, she uses the hugely popular Offspring TV series. She waxes both indulgently and patronisingly about the Proudman family, describing how:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>as they romp through these messy unions, they are endlessly creating families. Offspring are born in all manner of strange circumstances, to parental relationships that usually fall apart.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like many moral interpreters of family studies research, including Hymowitz, Arndt makes a tidy analogy between separation and dysfunction. It’s a cheap moral shot, and far from an evidence-based ethical conclusion. </p>
<p>Finding that children do better in families with two married parents tells us about the advantages of this family structure for children in our current social system. What it doesn’t tell us anything about is why this is true or what we can possibly do about it. </p>
<p>Arndt and Hymowitz, like many psychologists, opinionators and policy-makers, have distilled complex family studies research into a series of simplistic, unscientific and punitive ethical shortcuts to the question of how to live well in a family. It’s both a gross misuse of the evidence base and a stunted template for ethical decision-making. Squeezed into a tabloid headline, the message reads: Face Facts: If you’re a parent and you’re not married, your family is dysfunctional and your kids are suffering.</p>
<p>The ideal of the perfect family lurks not so quietly underneath these simple summaries of complex interpersonal and social life. It creates a kind of ethical vacuum where the question of competing factors and conflicting interests becomes invisible. In order to maintain an ideal of perfection, family studies research can be used as a kind of blunt instrument, forcing individuals to bear the brunt of more complex social forces alone. </p>
<p>It’s a kind of terrible fairytale bargain where we’re told to ignore the powerful structures at work in our lives – and are instead encouraged to make a simple exchange of our personhood for safe passage through the minefield of family morality.</p>
<p>It’s also attractive and anxiety-reducing to contain complex social data into individualistic categories such as <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/national/budget/joe_hockey_we_are_nation_of_lifters_emUX2Sg4Gm8S6T7L59KNvL">lifter and leaner</a> or married and separated. But the reality, in practice, is that there is very little we can say in either the therapy or the policy room that can contain the enormous complexity of family life. </p>
<p>In a single family there can be many competing interests driven by economics, gender, genetics and interpersonal styles, to name a few. In the case of family separation, a relationship that was “good enough” for the children may have been deeply inequitable for the adults. At what point can you make the call that staying together for the children is the ethical choice?</p>
<p>Whether it’s in the policy hub or the therapy room, we need to ask ourselves the same question before we make ethical pronouncements that will directly impact peoples’ lives: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Do I know this to be true? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course there are many things we know to be true about families. We know that gender inequality is <a href="http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/pubs/researchsummary/ressum7/02.html">part of the recipe</a> for family violence. We know almost one in five Australian women have <a href="http://www.aipc.net.au/articles/trends-and-statistics-of-the-contemporary-family/">experienced intimate partner violence</a>. We know that when children are the witnesses of this violence it has a devastating and long-term impacts on them. We know that children who live in poverty <a href="http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/fm2003/fm65/tr.pdf">suffer</a> at every level of their existence. And we know that between 40% and 60% of women will live below the poverty line following divorce.</p>
<p>This tiny snapshot of research into poverty, disadvantage and family violence gives us some idea of the incredible complexity of making ethical decisions about family structure in therapy and policy work. Apart from questioning carefully what we know to be true, we also need to ask what role research can play in any given context, and if there are competing interests, we need to answer the question of who is most vulnerable.</p>
<p>Family studies research can offer incredible insight into the impact of how we live together in the world but it can’t offer a blueprint for the perfect family structure. We can’t ignore solid research evidence, we just can’t pretend it’s a recipe for living. It’s never a simple formula of research in, public or personal policy out. </p>
<p>When we shirk the hard work of grappling with moral complexity in an open and fearless way, we do a kind of violence to both people and to science. Ethical thinking and practice always require exactly those two ingredients: thinking and practice. </p>
<p><br>
<em>This is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-days-virtue-isnt-just-for-sanctimonious-do-gooders-31168">a series</a> on public morality in 21st century Australia. We’ll be publishing regular articles on morality on The Conversation in the coming weeks.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31339/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoë Krupka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether we’re reading about family studies research in Women’s Day , Scientific American or the Journal of GLBT Family Studies, most of us look for evidence that will help us understand where we sit along…Zoë Krupka, PhD Student Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/307262014-09-10T20:28:55Z2014-09-10T20:28:55ZMorality and our lives with animals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57848/original/mv2cqkf7-1409552754.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our relationship with non-human animals must be understood as a question of morality.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patrick Bouquet/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The traditional point of view in western intellectual thought – and one which is reflected in our own day-to–day views – is that of human <a href="http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2014/01/plato-descartes-and-human-exceptionalism.html">exceptionalism</a>, or anthropocentrism: the belief that humans are the central and most important beings on the planet. </p>
<p>We see this belief time and again throughout our intellectual heritage. From early thinkers such as <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/protagor/">Protagoras</a>, who argued “man is the measure of all things”, through to contemporary expressions of the “heart-breaking specialness” of the human, anthropocentric views abound and are largely uncontested. </p>
<p>That we take them for granted is their power. The hierarchical thinking that places humans above animals can be traced back to our intellectual roots in Ancient Greece (at least in so far as the West is concerned) and in the Judeo-Christian tradition. </p>
<p>The more influential paradigm to emerge from ancient Greece found itself manifest in the thoughts of Aristotle (384BC–322BC). He argued that nature consisted of a hierarchy with “man” at the top of this <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-marino-phd/the-scala-naturae-is-aliv_b_4719171.html">Scala Natura</a>. Those with the least reasoning ability existed for the sake of those with the most in order to ensure survival; so plants exist for the sake of animals, animals for the sake of humans, and so on. </p>
<p>The endurance of this belief held the door wide open for the likes of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/">Rene Descartes</a> (1596-1650) and his construction of non-human animals as behaviouristic machines. The idea that animals are “other” to humans, that they do not share any of our fundamental cognitive abilities and that they merely react to stimuli outside them through habit, like machines, are all direct consequences of this line of thought. </p>
<p>In turn this led to the argument that considerations of animal mentation and consciousness were irrelevant, and following the Aristotelian line of thought we, as superior beings, have the right to do with inferior beings whatever we choose.</p>
<p>Descartes’ denial of the existence of animal consciousness set the tone for debates about the moral status of animals and animal rights. Whether animals are conscious has remained the central issue when we discuss whether animals deserve rights or not. </p>
<p>As critics have pointed out, though, this debate often tells us more about how we perceive humans. It underlines our belief in human exceptionalism. Tied irrevocably to our beliefs in our own civility, versus the barbarity of nature, this view sets us apart from and above other life on the planet. </p>
<p>We believe ourselves to have certain unique traits (the capacity for language or culture, say) that distinguish us from other species. Part and parcel of this belief is the view that we can control nature and therefore have a right to use it to meet our own needs. This often includes other animals. And so anthropocentric viewpoints legitimate such practices as meat eating, factory farming, the uses of animals for entertainment and clothing and so on.</p>
<p>Most attempts from moral philosophy to challenge this weighty intellectual tradition are mired in their own anthropocentric worldview. Key figures such as <a href="http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Saints/Authors/Interviews/Peter%20Singer--summary.htm">Peter Singer</a>, the author of the “bible of the animal rights movement” (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Animal_Liberation">Animal Liberation</a>, 1975), <a href="http://www.richardryder.com/">Ryder</a> (Victims of Science, 1975) and Midgley (<a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1203341?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104576486587">Animals and Why They Matter</a>, 1984) become bogged down in attempts to prove that animals have enough similarity to humans to warrant their inclusion in our moral frameworks. </p>
<p>This relegates animals to an inferior status by implication: unless they are similar enough to us in their abilities they do not deserve equal moral worth. </p>
<p>Throughout history there have been those who contested this view.</p>
<p>From the 1970s onwards there has been an animal “liberation” movement which aims to secure rights for nonhuman animals. </p>
<p>More recently, though, the location of this ideology – in liberal humanism – has been questioned: should we be aiming to secure rights for nonhuman animals based on their similarity to us, or should aim to understand and respect their differences along with their right to live on this planet alongside us? </p>
<p>The result is a re-thinking, or re-framing, of human-animal relations as we move to recognise the intrinsic value of other creatures with whom we share this planet. </p>
<p>Traditional views are slowly being eroded and with this comes a certain freedom. Biologists are finding themselves able to legitimately investigate topics such as the emotional and moral lives of animals without being summarily dismissed for their erroneous anthropomorphism. From the Greek <em>anthropos</em> and <em>morphe</em> meaning <em>human</em> and <em>form</em> respectively, this is the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman “objects” which includes other animals. </p>
<p>From 17th century philosophic objections from the likes of Francis Bacon and Baruch Spinoza, and finally finding its pinnacle of expression in the radical behaviourism of the mid-20th century, anthropomorphism has come to be synonymous with un-scientific practices. It attributes emotions and mental states to animals that cannot be proven by scientific standards. (Note that the lack of emotions and perceived impoverished mental lives of nonhuman animals was and still is used to justify their ill treatment and inferior moral status.)</p>
<p>Even so anthropomorphism remains a consistent and persistent part of human practices with other animals. (Do you talk to your dog and believe s/he is guilty when found destroying the contents of the rubbish bin? <a href="http://www.livescience.com/3669-guilty-dog-myth.html">You are not alone</a>.) </p>
<p>Anthropomorphism is also a deeply ingrained part of modern human cultures and can be seen in folklore and cultural representations (think Skippy or Lassie, among others). In this way anthropomorphism is one of the ways in which we disrupt previously assumed clear delineations between human and nonhuman, between human and animal. </p>
<p>And by doing so, at a practical level we call into question the superiority of humans. Anthropomorphic practices allow nonhuman animals agency and in turn move them from being perceived as object to subject. </p>
<p>Not only does this blur the carefully erected and maintained boundaries between humans and other animals, but it leads to tricky questions: if animals do feel in similar ways to humans then how do we justify current (ab)uses of them? </p>
<p>The age-old justifications based on difference – that they do not feel pain and so on – no longer apply and we find ourselves with a set of social practices such as eating meat, the morality of which is no longer clear-cut. </p>
<p><br>
<em>This is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-days-virtue-isnt-just-for-sanctimonious-do-gooders-31168">a series</a> on public morality in 21st century Australia. We’ll be publishing regular articles on morality on The Conversation in the coming weeks.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nik Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The traditional point of view in western intellectual thought – and one which is reflected in our own day-to–day views – is that of human exceptionalism, or anthropocentrism: the belief that humans are…Nik Taylor, Associate Professor in Sociology, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/307932014-09-07T20:33:03Z2014-09-07T20:33:03ZWe don’t need no (moral) education? Five things you should learn about ethics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58218/original/6swx9vp2-1409806125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The word morality makes people uneasy – but not ethics. What is the basis of a moral education?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flood G/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The human animal takes a remarkably long time to reach maturity. And we cram a lot of learning into that time, as well we should: the list of things we need to know by the time we hit adulthood in order to thrive – personally, economically, socially, politically – is enormous.</p>
<p>But what about ethical thriving? Do we need to be taught moral philosophy alongside the three Rs?</p>
<p>Ethics has now <a href="http://www.primaryethics.com.au/">been introduced into New South Wales primary schools</a> as an alternative to religious instruction, but the idea of moral philosophy as a core part of compulsory education seems unlikely to get much traction any time soon. To many ears, the phrase “moral education” has a whiff of something distastefully Victorian (the era, not the state). It suggests indoctrination into an unquestioned set of norms and principles – and in the world we find ourselves in now, there is no such set we can all agree on. </p>
<p>Besides, in an already crowded curriculum, do we really have time for moral philosophy? After all, most people manage to lead pretty decent lives without knowing their <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sidgwick/">Sidgewick</a> from their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._M._Scanlon">Scanlon</a> or being able to spot a <a href="http://philosophy.tamu.edu/%7Egary/bioethics/ethicaltheory/actrule.html">rule utilitarian</a> from 50 yards. </p>
<p>But intractable moral problems don’t go away just because we no longer agree how to deal with them. And as <a href="https://theconversation.com/self-driving-cars-need-adjustable-ethics-set-by-owners-30656">recent discussions on this site</a> help to illustrate, new problems are always arising that, one way or another, we have to deal with. As individuals and as participants in the public space, we simply can’t get out of having to think about issues of right and wrong.</p>
<p>Yet spend time hanging around the comments section of any news story with an ethical dimension to it (and that’s most of them), and it quickly becomes apparent that most people just aren’t familiar with the methods and frameworks of ethical reasoning that have been developed over the last two and a half thousand years. We have the tools, but we’re not equipping people with them.</p>
<p>So, what sort of things should we be teaching if we wanted to foster “ethical literacy”? What would count as a decent grounding in moral philosophy for the average citizen of contemporary, pluralistic societies?</p>
<p>What follows is in no way meant to be definitive. It’s not based on any sort of serious empirical data around people’s familiarity with ethical issues. It’s a just tentative stab (wait, can you stab tentatively?) at a list of things people should ideally know about ethics, and based, on what I see in the classroom and, online, often don’t. </p>
<h2>1. Ethics and morality are (basically) the same thing</h2>
<p>Many people bristle at the word “morality” but are quite comfortable using the term “ethical”, and insist there’s some crucial difference between the two. For instance, some people say ethics are about external, socially imposed norms, while morality is about individual conscience. Others say ethics is concrete and practical while morality is more abstract, or is somehow linked to religion.</p>
<p>Out on the value theory front lines, however, there’s no clear agreed distinction, and most philosophers use the two terms more or less interchangeably. And let’s face it: if <em>even professional philosophers</em> refuse to make a distinction, there probably isn’t one there to be made.</p>
<h2>2. Morality isn’t (necessarily) subjective</h2>
<p>Every philosophy teacher probably <a href="http://falcon.tamucc.edu/%7Ephilosophy/graphics/berkich/James-Lenman-How-to-Write-a-Crap-Philosophy-Essay.pdf">knows the dismay</a> of reading a decent ethics essay, only to then be told in the final paragraph that, “Of course, morality is subjective so there is no real answer”. So what have the last three pages been about then? </p>
<p>There seems to be a widespread assumption that the very fact that people disagree about right and wrong means there is no real fact of the matter, just individual preferences. We use the expression “value judgment” in a way that implies such judgments are fundamentally subjective. </p>
<p>Sure, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/subjectivism.shtml">ethical subjectivism</a> is a perfectly respectable position with a long pedigree. But it’s not the only game in town, and it doesn’t win by default simply because we haven’t settled all moral problems. Nor does ethics lose its grip on us even if we take ourselves to be living in a universe devoid of intrinsic moral value. We can’t simply stop caring about how we should act; even subjectivists don’t suddenly turn into monsters.</p>
<h2>3. “You shouldn’t impose your morality on others” is itself a moral position.</h2>
<p>You hear this all the time, but you can probably spot the fallacy here pretty quickly: that “shouldn’t” there is itself a moral “shouldn’t” (rather than a prudential or social “shouldn’t,” like “you shouldn’t tease bears” or “you shouldn’t swear at the Queen”). Telling other people it’s morally wrong to tell other people what’s morally wrong looks obviously flawed – so why do otherwise bright, thoughtful people still do it?</p>
<p>Possibly because what the speaker is assuming here is that “morality” is a domain of personal beliefs (“morals”) which we can set aside while continuing to discuss issues of how we should treat each other. In effect, the speaker is imposing one particular moral framework – <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/#LibEth">liberalism</a> – without realising it.</p>
<h2>4. “Natural” doesn’t necessarily mean “right”</h2>
<p>This is an easy trap to fall into. Something’s being “natural” (if it even is) doesn’t tell us that it’s actually good. Selfishness might turn out to be natural, for instance, but that doesn’t mean it’s right to be selfish. </p>
<p>This gets a bit more complicated when you factor in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_naturalism">ethical naturalism</a> or <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/natlaw/">Natural Law theory</a>, because philosophers are awful people and really don’t want to make things easy for you.</p>
<h2>5. The big three: Consequentialism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics</h2>
<p>There’s several different ethical frameworks that moral philosophers use, but some familiarity with the three main ones – <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/">consequentialism</a> (what’s right and wrong depends upon consequences); <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/">deontology</a> (actions are right or wrong in themselves); and <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/">virtue ethics</a> (act in accordance with <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-days-virtue-isnt-just-for-sanctimonious-do-gooders-31168">the virtues characteristic of a good person</a>) – is incredibly useful. </p>
<p>Why? Because they each manage to focus our attention on different, morally relevant features of a situation, features that we might otherwise miss. </p>
<p>So, that’s my tentative stab (still sounds wrong!). Do let me know in the comments what you’d add or take out.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>This is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-days-virtue-isnt-just-for-sanctimonious-do-gooders-31168">a series</a> on public morality in 21st century Australia. We’ll be publishing regular articles on morality on The Conversation in the coming weeks.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Stokes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The human animal takes a remarkably long time to reach maturity. And we cram a lot of learning into that time, as well we should: the list of things we need to know by the time we hit adulthood in order…Patrick Stokes, Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/311682014-09-03T20:17:41Z2014-09-03T20:17:41ZHappy days: virtue isn’t just for sanctimonious do-gooders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58110/original/n436h7s7-1409721774.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Good moral character comes from practice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moyan Brenn</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When we think of morally upright, virtuous citizens, do we imagine boring do-gooders? Is the idea of being virtuous out-dated and old-fashioned? Or is “being virtuous” still something we should aspire to in our contemporary society?</p>
<p>Prior to the notion of one Omni-God, Ancient Greek philosopher <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/">Aristotle</a> (384-322 BCE) claimed that being virtuous was rational and good for everyone. The father of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/">Virtue Ethics</a>, Aristotle’s starting point wasn’t based on reward in another life or on categorical rules, but on what makes us essentially human.</p>
<p>In his <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Nicomachean_Ethics.html?id=Mb7WAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Nicomachean Ethics</a> Aristotle writes that we are essentially social, political and moral creatures because we live in a society and our behaviour affects one another. In this way being virtuous makes good sense because if people treat each other well, they’re likely to be content.</p>
<p>This suggests the wellbeing of the individual is linked to the place in which they live, and this idea is still supported today as psychologists claim our environment affects our physical and mental health and annual <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_most_liveable_cities">most liveable cities</a> lists are enthusiastically shared.</p>
<p>For Aristotle, the purpose of life is <em>eudaimonia</em>, which is often translated as happiness, but is better understood as flourishing, so as to distinguish it from hedonism. A happy or good life is not one in which we have every single thing we desire, instead, it is about being fulfilled and feeling that we’ve contributed something to the world, however small or great, through the life we have lived. According to the virtue ethicist, this goal of <em>eudaimonia</em> is best achieved by following the virtues, and developing a good or virtuous character. </p>
<p>So how do we develop good moral character, and does this mean we’ll be boring do-gooders?</p>
<p>Good moral character is developed by practising the virtues, which are mid-point between excessive or deficient behaviour. Thus, the right thing to do is guided by this doctrine of the mean. The mean is mid-point between two extremes. So, courage is a virtue as it is mid-point between rashness (excessive) and cowardice (deficient). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58107/original/cy753f8c-1409721618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58107/original/cy753f8c-1409721618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58107/original/cy753f8c-1409721618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58107/original/cy753f8c-1409721618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58107/original/cy753f8c-1409721618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58107/original/cy753f8c-1409721618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58107/original/cy753f8c-1409721618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58107/original/cy753f8c-1409721618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">=</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Guilherme Oliveira</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To practise the virtue of courage, I would consider the specific situation and think of what would be rash or cowardly and then consider what would be the mid-point or courageous thing to do in that situation. I may get it wrong, but Aristotle allows for the fact that we learn by doing things, and thus we can keep practising and get better at working out what is the right thing to do. </p>
<p>If I practise the virtuous action often enough, it eventually becomes a character trait whereby I don’t even have to think about it and my natural response is virtuous. For example, if I decide that honesty is a virtue (as it is mid-point between lying and bluntness), I may practice truth-telling until my usual response is to tell the truth when appropriate. Of course, this also allows for me to become less moral if I practice the vices and, for example, I could become a proficient liar if I work at it enough. </p>
<p>The usual criticism of virtue ethics is that it is too subjective, as the virtues are related to one’s own talents and abilities. For instance, my mid-point between lying and bluntness, my version of being honest, may equate to your version of being blunt. There is also much debate as to whether, say, “tolerance” is a virtue, or whether or not you should ever tell a white lie. </p>
<p>Yet, this weakness of the theory may also be considered as its strength. The subjective nature of the virtues allows for some social and cultural variance, and if this individual difference is respected, it need not be a bad thing but rather improve global harmony. If we respect the traditions of other cultures, provided they don’t cause harm, then most people would agree this is a good thing. Although what constitutes “harm” can still be a grey area.</p>
<p>But the pluralism of virtue ethics that accounts for context doesn’t deny that there are shared values. Generally, everyone will agree that we should avoid being cruel, and try to be kind, but we may interpret this slightly differently according to the time and place in which we live. This means that the theory of virtue ethics is flexible enough to still apply today. </p>
<p>So how does being virtuous help us today? </p>
<p>In today’s contemporary society it may be useful to consider how to virtuously engage in an ethical debate on social media. The excessive reaction may be to troll or bully others whose ideas differ to my own. The deficient response may be to not enter into the conversation at all for fear of confrontation or others disagreeing with me. </p>
<p>The midpoint between these two responses may be to have a reasonable discussion whereby not everyone has to agree, but we understand that we are contributing to an ongoing and meaningful conversation. Following the doctrine of the mean, this is the virtuous act. Sure, this doesn’t tell me what to believe, yet it hints as to how to communicate my ideas, based on respect and empathy and a fellow-feeling that recognises I am one among a community.</p>
<p>Therefore, the old-fashioned Golden Rule: treat others as you’d like to be treated still seems relevant today. Even in a technological world, following the virtues is useful because, by treating others well, I will also benefit. Furthermore, if the majority value virtuous behaviour, then the society in which I live allows for a good or happy life. </p>
<p>It seems that Aristotle is correct, and the virtues can be a useful guide in helping me to reach this goal of living the good life. </p>
<p><br>
<em>This is the first article in a series on public morality in 21st century Australia. We’ll be publishing regular articles on morality on The Conversation in the coming weeks.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura D'Olimpio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When we think of morally upright, virtuous citizens, do we imagine boring do-gooders? Is the idea of being virtuous out-dated and old-fashioned? Or is “being virtuous” still something we should aspire…Laura D'Olimpio, Lecturer in Philosophy and Ethics, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.